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Unit Organization
The military knows that the strength of a well-coordinated group of soldiers is far greater than the sum of its parts. Flames Of War reflects this by organizing your force into Teams, Units, and Formations. Teams Although the acts of a few individuals are always glorified by the News Reels and Newspapers back home, in reality, a soldier never does anything on their own. Soldiers are trained to operate as a Team, and it is this teamwork that keeps them alive. In Flames Of War, your miniature soldiers also operate in Teams. There are four main types of Teams: Tanks, Infantry, Guns, and Aircraft. Tank Teams Tank Teams include all manner of military vehicles, from the mighty Tiger tank, down to the lowly jeep. A Tank Team is a single vehicle. Tank Teams are either Armoured or Unarmoured. Some Tank Teams are also Transport Teams designed to carry infantry as passengers. Infantry Teams Infantry Teams include most troops fighting on foot. An Infantry Team is a group of miniatures all mounted on a single base. They can be equipped with individual weapons like rifles, submachine-guns, and light machine-guns. A Team equipped with crew-served weapons like the tripod-mounted Vickers medium machine-gun, or a man packed 81mm mortar is a Heavy Weapon Team. Gun Teams Gun Teams include soldiers crewing weapons too heavy to be carried by a soldier. A Gun Team is a gun model and a group of miniatures all mounted on a single base. They range from small anti-tank guns such as the 6-pounder anti-tank gun up to powerful giants like the dreaded ‘88’, 8.8cm FlaK anti-aircraft gun. Gun Teams also cover everything from 4.2-inch heavy mortars and quick-firing 25 pdr field guns to heavy artillery. Aircraft Teams Aircraft Teams are ground-attack aircraft like the deadly Ju-87 Stuka dive bomber and the tank-busting Typhoon. An Aircraft Team is a single aircraft. Observers A player may only take one Observer Team in a force. It may be taken from any of the available Observer Teams in the force, as long as the Unit it comes from has been selected in the force, or might be an Air Observation Post (AOP), if available. They may take any associated transport which also becomes part of the Observer’s Independent Unit. Any upgrades available to the Observer Team in the original Artillery Unit may be taken. Units Your Teams are grouped into Units, platoons in most cases, but sometimes companies, typically of three to ten tanks or 30 to 100 infantrymen. In a battle, a Unit usually operates as one, manoeuvring across the battlefield together and engaging the same foes. Unit Leaders A Unit combines a group of Teams under the command of a Unit Leader: an American or British Lieutenant, a German Leutnant, or a Soviet Kapitan ''(captain). An Infantry Unit will normally have a small base with an officer on it as its Unit Leader. If the Unit does not have an obvious Unit Leader, you may pick any Team in the Unit as the Unit Leader at the start of the game. Intelligence Handbooks Flames Of War has evolved over the years and there are many great books available with which to field forces for Flames Of War. These rules have been written to make the transition from old to new easy. The term Unit in the rules refers to a Platoon (or Soviet Company) in the Flames Of War Intelligence handbooks. Company or Battalion (the latter for Soviets) Headquarters are HQ Units. Attachments Attachments are additional equipment that is part of a Unit. Infantry Units containing Transport Teams as a Tank Attachment (or vice versa) are split into two Units, an Infantry Unit and a Transport Unit (each with their own Unit Leader). Both parts of the Unit operate independently as separate Units, supporting each other, although they deploy as a single Unit. Transport and Attachments A Unit that has Transport Tank Teams forms these Teams into a Transport Attachment, making one Transport Tank Team the Unit Leader. Independent Units Small, single-team units, such as a single artillery observer, are Independent Units. These fight in support of larger Units. Independent Infantry Units often have a transport vehicle as part of their Unit, and unlike most transports, this remains as part of the Independent Unit. Independent units can use the Mistaken Target rule to reassign hits to nearby Units, but cannot Charge into Contact, nor take an Objective, and are ignored for Victory Points. Combat Attachments The Intelligence Briefings will specify which Units are eligible to make Combat Attachments within a Formation, and the Units that they can attach to Teams. In addition, you can also make Combat Attachments from Formation HQ Units. If you want to make Combat Attachments, you must do so before Deploying any of your Units. You may either Combat Attach up to half of the Teams or all of the Teams of a Unit. If you choose to attach out all of the Teams the Unit itself ceases to exist for the duration of the game. A Formation HQ Unit may never Combat Attach out the Formation Commander. A Formation HQ Unit may make Combat Attachments to any of its Combat Platoon Units. A Unit may Combat Attach Teams to any or all eligible Units in its Formation, but may not Combat Attach more than half its Teams to any one Unit. If the Unit making Combat Attachments has Transport Teams, you must Combat Attach the Transport Team that normally carries a Team with it. These will become part of the new Unit’s Transport Unit. Once all Combat Attachments have been made, the Combatattached Teams become part of the Unit they are attached to for all purposes for the whole game. Redundant Teams Gun Units, such as Anti-tank gun Platoons and Artillery Batteries, and Heavy Weapon (Man-packed Gun) Units like Mortar and Machine-gun Platoons, no longer field command Infantry teams, Staff teams, or excess Observer teams. These are not deployed on the table. Instead, one of the Gun Teams or Heavy Weapon Teams is nominated to be the Unit Leader. Formations Units are gathered together into Formations, companies in most cases, but sometimes battalions (mostly for Russian units). A Formation contains a number of combat Units, along with several Units of heavy weapons, scouts, and other troops to back them up. While you must have at least one Formation in your force, you can have as many as you like. Formation Commander Each Formation has an HQ Unit containing the Formation Commander: * an American Captain, * a British Major, * a German ''Hauptmann (Captain), * or Soviet Podpolkovnik (Lieutenant Colonel), and their staff. The Commander is the Unit Leader of the HQ Unit and commands all the Units in the Formation. You may choose any non-Transport Team from the HQ Unit as their Commander at the start of the game. Unlike other Units, Transport Teams from the HQ Unit remain as part of the Commander’s Unit. Command Leadership A Commander’s presence can inspire troops to fight harder. When a Unit’s Leader is within 6”/15cm and in Line of Sight of their own Formation Commander (including Commander’s own HQ Unit), the Unit may re-roll failed Counterattack, Rally, Remount, and Last Stand rolls. As Support Units don’t have their own Formation Commander, any Formation Commander may lead them, granting them re-rolls. Intelligence Handbooks The term Formation in the rules refers to a Company (or Soviet Battalion) in the Flames Of War Intelligence Handbooks. A Formation is made of your Company Headquarters, Combat Platoons, Weapons Platoons, and Regimental/Brigade Support Platoons. Other Divisional/Corps supports in your force are Support Units. Multiple Formations You can field more than one Formation but must choose only one Formation (Company or Battalion) from which to take Divisional/Corps Support Units. All Formations must be from the same Intelligence Handbook or related digital content, nation, and same higher level force, such as a brigade, division or corps. As a guide, if you can take a Combat Platoon Unit as support from another Formation, you can also take that Formation as a part of your force. For example, you could take Formations from 21. Panzerdivision on pages 48 to 79 of Atlantik Wall. In addition, because they can already take Luftwaffe Jäger Platoons and Schwere Panzer Platoons in support, you could also field a Luftwaffe Jägerkompanie or a Schwere Panzerkompanie Formation. Allied Support You can take an Allied Formation as part of your force. This Formation obeys all the rules for its own nationality and acts as a Formation in its own right. Allied Formation can only be chosen from the Nations given as Allies on one of your Formation (company) diagrams. Category:Game mechanics Category:Under Construction